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2007 Neely "Hidden Block" Santa Cruz Mountains Pinot Noir

SKU #1055722

Varner's Hidden Block Pinot Noir comes from eight-year-old vines and shows its youth with exuberance and grace. Located just 10 miles from the rumbling, cool Pacific in the Santa Cruz Mountains, the site is a carefully cared for swath of porous, fractured sedimentary rock with naturally low yields. The wine's delicately perfumed nose and vibrant palate explode with dark cherries, red plums and sweet, forest floor, buoyed by the restrained use of new oak.

Product Reviews:

We here at K&L have maintained for quite sometime that the Varner brothers, Jim & Bob, make some of the best Chardonnay and Pinot Noir in California. This small production winery makes a few of the most recognizable labels in our store: Foxglove, Spring Ridge and Varner. Jim & Bob also make a label called Neely, in conjunction with the family of the same name, who own the Spring Ridge Vineyard. Originally planted in 1980 near Portola Valley this vineyard has five separate blocks and acts as the Estate vineyard to the Varner and Neely labels. The Hidden Block bottling is a classic Santa Cruz Mountains appellation Pinot Noir. Subtle, vibrant and earthy, this is a more feminine Pinot that is truly going to be best served at the dinner table. Aromas of wet soil, fern, whole nutmeg and sweet pastilles combine for an alluring nose. Soft and pliable up front, this firms up as it goes with tangy acid and a myriad of red fruit flavors.
Seamless and integrated, this is a complete wine that easily can be drunk now but will also get better over the next few years.

Varner’s Pinot Noir is a wonderful Pinot in this price range. The wine presents a very nice mixture of bright red fruit, spice notes and just a touch of forest floor to round out the pallet. Well integrated lithe tannins and perky acidity will allow this wine to drink well for some time to come.

Additional Information:

Varietal:

Pinot Noir

- One of France's most legendary grapes and the grape that earned Burgundy its reputation. The parent of varietals like Pinot Gris/Grigio and Pinot Blanc, Pinot Noir is blue to violet to indigo in color with relatively thin skins, and it is said to have been cultivated in France for more than 2,000 years. At its best, Pinot Noir creates elegant wines that are filled with primary red fruit aromas and flavors while young, revealing with an array of secondary characteristics like earth, smoke, violet, truffle and game with age. The varietal is also known, perhaps better than any, for its ability to translate terroir, or a sense of place. While the best Pinot Noir still comes from Burgundy, it is being produced with increasing success in cooler climates around the world. In France, it is part of the trifecta of grapes that can go into Champagne, and it is also grown in Alsace, Irancy, Jura, Savoie, Lorraine and Sancerre. Outside of France it is produced under the names Pinot Nero and Blauburgunder in Italy's mountainous regions, as Spätburgunder in Germany and as Blauburgunder in Austria. In the US, Pinot Noir has found suitable growing conditions in the cooler parts of California, including Carneros, the Russian River Valley, the Anderson Valley, the Sonoma Coast, Monterey County, the Santa Lucia Highlands and Santa Barbara County, as well as in Oregon's Willamette Valley. In recent years, New Zealand has demonstrated its ability to interpret this hard-to-grow varietal, with successful bottlings coming from careful and attentive growers in Central Otago, Martinborough and Canterbury. Chile is also an up-and-coming region for Pinot Noir, creating fresh, fruit-forward, early-drinking and affordable Pinots from the coastal Casablanca Valley and the Limari Valley.

Country:

United States

- When people consider domestic wine, they normally think about the state of California. The fine viticultural Region within California, including the Napa Valley, Sonoma, Santa Cruz Mountains, Mendocino and Santa Barbara, are capable of growing grapes of world-class quality. But there's plenty of fabulous wine coming from other states, too. Oregon, Washington and New York are also causing eyebrows (and glassware) to be raised around the world. Click for a list of bestselling items from the United States.

Sub-Region:

California

- With the explosive growth that California's wine industry has seen the past several years, it's easy to view winemaking and grape growing in the Golden State as a recent phenomenon. And while it's true that California's viticultural history is brief compared to several European countries, this state's roots date back well over 200 years. Due to the enormous response to California wine within the United States and worldwide, there are thousands of excellent and diverse wines being produced within the state each year. For our entire selection of California wines, please visit this link.

Specific Appellation:

Santa Cruz Mountains

- Vineyards dot the valleys and ridges of this coastal AVA just south of San Francisco. Microclimates make it difficult to generalize, and vineyards are frequently separated by acres of forests and meadowlands (not to mention entire towns!), but this is nonetheless known as a cooler-climate zone ideal for pinot noir. Ridge is doubtless the most famous local producer, with its cabernet blend, Monte Bello, named after a Santa Cruz mountain peak. High-quality, low-production chardonnay and some Rhône varietals prosper as well.